Rome again, naturally

The train ride from Verona to Rome was pretty uneventful. We arrived into The Eternal City around 3 pm, bought our transit passes and hopped on a (packed) bus to our apartment in the Trastevere neighborhood. It's just across the Tiber from the main historic center of Rome. (That's literally what tras-tevere means - across the Tiber.) We stayed in this neighborhood before, in 2008, so knew we'd enjoy it.

Here's our apartment that we rented:

Big living room (tiny kitchen not in view here)

Big bedroom

View of Piazza San Cosimato from our window.
But those Vespas ended up being rather pesky at night. Boy, are they LOUD!

Trastevere is loaded with charming restaurants on the cobblestone streets.
Here's the one we went to on our first night. 

Here's the "all'aperto" section (in the open air.)
Note: Al Fresco is some guy from Jersey; It's NOT how you ask for a table outside.

While at that restaurant, we met a local resident.
She looks a lot like one of our own, so I had to give her some chicken.
That made me her very best friend for about 20 minutes until our plates were taken away.

One of the gorgeous buildings on the main piazza in this neighborhood, Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere.

Another building on PSMT.

Beautiful old gate/door found in a lot of movies set in Rome.

A modified Zamboni street sweeper, for these narrow cobblestone roads.
They actually seem cleaner this year than previous years.

When he stopped, I turned to take a picture and discovered this wonderful little shrine to Mary.
You'll find these at lots of places where streets intersect.
Apparently that concept of a shrine at an intersection dates back to pre-Christian days. 

When work needs to be done under the streets, they come in and pull up the pavers,
which are often set only in sand - no mortar. 

It's amazing to think that they've been doing it this way for century after century.
With the exception of the bobcat. I'm pretty sure that's more recent.

That night we went to our favorite restaurant in Rome - Taverna Edoardo Second (Edward II).
It also happens to be one of the few restaurants in Rome that's LGBT owned.
Mario, the owner, has become a friend over the years.
Romans are very affectionate.  :-)   

Some friends of Mario's were also there and one agreed to take these photos.
Because I wanted to speak Italian instead of English, Mario decided that
we were pretending to be Americans and were actually Sicilian mobsters. 

One of the things we love about this place is that we don't look at a menu.
Mario just asks us "Carne o pesce?" (Meat or fish?)
He then brings us a bottle of wine and starts bringing the food.
This first one (il primo) was a handmade ravioli with sausage, ricotta and basil. Yummm.
Mario made sure we understood that he made the pasta dough with his own hands.

The "secondo" was chicken that was falling off the bone, it was so tender.
Arugula and roast potatoes as well.

The dessert was actually two halves of two different desserts.
Half a chocolate cannoli and half of some marzipan treat.
We were there for almost three hours. Thoroughly delightful.
We're going back on Friday.

On our way to the Capitoline Museums. 

Parts of Constantine. That head is about seven feet tall. Maybe more. It was once part of a complete statue that must have been at least 40 feet tall. That's one of his hands behind the "Caution" sign.

And he decided to have a similar statue cast of himself in bronze, but maybe a little smaller.

Ancient statue of a boy pulling a thorn out of his foot,
while John poses for a statue of a tourist getting a crick in his neck.

This statue will be used as inspiration for an episode of Project Runway.
In case you can't tell what's going on with it, let's just say that the sculptor took the concept
of "double-breasted" and ran with it.

Micro-mosaic of Orestes and his sister Iphigenia.
Caption probably read:
"I told you to knock before coming into my room! I'm gonna tell Mom!"

View of the Forum from the Capitoline Museum.

Amazing fully restored fountain of Oceanus, just recently finished.
Look at the scale compared to John.

This is one of the museum's most famous pieces - The Dying Gaul.
Unfortunately, it was being photographed for something,
leading it to look like some beefcake calendar shoot with an artfully draped piece of velvet.

Another mosaic, but what you can't see here is how tiny some of the pieces are.

Some of the pieces are about the size of grains of kosher salt, maybe smaller.
Unbelievable. Ancient Roman, from the floor at Hadrian's villa.

This 17th century statue shows that somebody learned where to buy hair product.

Two nuns and a priest are waiting for a cab. Have you heard this one?

More photos tomorrow.